Kitchener Join

It’s 4 days before the annual Child’s Play dinner auction in Seattle, and that can only mean one thing: Jac and I have spent the last week pulling all-nighters trying to get the 2018 Geek-A-Long blanket joined, cleaned, and mailed out in time. We are chronic procrastinators. I wish I weren’t, I honestly do. I hate feeling under the wire all the time. But the truth is, I just don’t function well without the urgency. Ages ago, I read The Art of Procrastination by Dr. John Perry (a surprisingly engaging read) and the thing he said that resonated with me the most was,

I’ll get around to doing something important only when something else becomes more important. 

Too real, Dr. Perry. Too real. Anyhow, every year we swear up and down that we are going to start doing the joins over the summer. We’ll have it done, photographed, and packed away by October at the latest. That year was not this year. The good news is, as of typing this, the blanket is actually in Seattle.

I didn’t get to take it for the farewell tour of the city that I usually do, but Mabel did take the opportunity to roll herself up into a Geek-A-Long burrito, so the blanket felt the love. And we did manage to squeeze it out in time for me to go to PAX Unplugged, which was amazeballs. 

For this year’s join, I wanted to achieve a look similar to the LLJ from year one, but that could be executed without giving people nervous breakdowns. Full disclosure: This join tutorial is actually slightly different from what I did. But the differences are enhancements. As I worked mine, there were  a few things I knew I would change if I did it all over again. I didn’t have time to redo mine, but you get the benefit of that experience. This tutorial will walk you through how to pick up stitches, knit the edgings, and graft those edges together. The version I’m publishing is smoother, easier, and has slightly wider vertical sides than the one I did. I plan on doing a version of this one for next year too. The only thing I plan to change is that I think I’ll work it in garter rows, rather than flat stockinette, for some fun texture. Next year’s blanket isn’t the color and pattern randomness of this year’s blanket, and I think the texture will kick it up a notch. The added texture would have been too much on this year’s. 

Speaking of next year…..

wait for it…..

We’ll be announcing the theme and yarn next week! Yay! and for everyone that emailed to say they missed the subscriptions to Geek-A-Long yarn this year, we will have a kit for you! It won’t be a subscription, we didn’t love that model. But, it will be a kit that offers all the colors you need to knit up next year’s blanket. Also, not for nothing, but Jac completely outdid herself with the 2019 designs. They are so amazing. I’ve started making our blanket already, of course (the squares are basically the only thing on earth I can’t get away with procrastinating on), and they are blowing me away. I can’t wait to show them to you. So come back next week for a pic spam of the 2018 blanket once it’s had a chance to debut in Seattle, and all the exciting 2019 details!

With no further ado, I present the 2018 join: the Kitchener Join.

To work this join you do not need to decide in advance where your squares will go. What’s great about that is that if you decide to use this one for a future Geek-A-Long blanket, you can do the vertical (side) joins as you go, and then just add in the horizontal joins and edging when you’re done. I strongly recommend learning any new join on some swatches, and not on your real squares. To that end, I’m going to walk you through making a fun and useful pot holder that you can use to learn the techniques. 

I think it looks like a stained glass window. Also, as I was making it, but after I was past the point that I felt like starting over I thought that it would have been fun to have done the joins in blue, and 3 of the squares in white with one in yellow for a low key TARDIS pot holder. Once I finish my Christmas knitting I am totally going to make myself some Dr. Who pot holders. 

To make your little practice squares, select 2 colors of yarn, and cast on 12 sts for double knitting. Work 15 rows in double knitting, working one color on the right side, and the other color on the wrong side. Cast off, and make 3 more squares for a total of 4. 

Now, select your join/edging color. I used purple here, and Grease Lightening on my real GAL blanket. You will also need quite a bit of waste yarn to hold sts on until you are ready to graft them. Make your life easier by choosing a color for your waste yarn that is easy to differentiate from your working yarn. 

Step 1: Knit the vertical joins

1. Using the same size circular needles that you used to knit your squares, pick up and knit 1 st for each row on the right edge of the square. So, on these little squares I’m picking up and knitting 15 sts. On the full size Geek-A-Long squares you’re picking up 57 sts. You’re going to work each side of the blanket separately, so pick up the sts on just the right edge of the right side first. You may find that it’s easier to pick up the sts with a needle that is smaller than your working needle, which can be done by either picking up a st with a double pointed needle and then working it with your circular needles, or by using interchangeable needles and putting a smaller needle on the side that you’ll use to pick up the sts.
2. Turn the work. Now, you will work a decrease row. Double knitting (and in fact, most knitting) stitches are wider than they are tall. That’s why you have more rows than sts per row. On this next row you will decrease to compensate for that. You can simply pick up fewer sts if you wish, but I found after several trials that I got the cleanest looking edges by picking up 1 for each row, and then decreasing on row 2. You want the number of side stitches to match the number of top and bottom sts for the joins. So, on my potholder squares there are 12 sts and 15 rows. That means I will decrease 3 on this next row to make the side match the 12 sts on the tops and bottom. On a 45st by 57 row Geek-A-Long square you’ll decrease 12 in this row, to have 45 sts on the sides and on the top and bottom. Spread these decreases out evenly across the row (I recomend working 3 sts, then a decrease st across). Purl across the wrong side row, decreasing by P2tog so that the total of sts on your needle matches the total number of sts in each row of the square. Fun fact: If you hate purling (and I hate purling), you could work this in garter ridges by knitting all rows rather than purling every other row. 
3. Turn, and knit one row.
4. Turn and purl one row. 
5. Break your yarn and slip the sts to a waste yarn holder.  

Repeat steps 1-5 on the reverse side of the square, and then again on the front and back of the other side edge. 

Step 2: Graft the vertical joins

Once you have knit an edge onto the front and back sided of each square, you will use a Kitchener stitch to join them together to make strips. These strips will later be joined together to make the blanket. 

1. Line up 2 squares that you want to join. Slip the sts from the waste yarn holding the front sts for the 2 edges you want to join onto circular needles. Cut a long lenth of your working yarn, and thread it onto a tapestry needle.
2. Work the kitchener st (see video) across all the sts. When you have worked the last st and removed it from the needles knot this tail together with the tail from the edging. 
3. Knot the tail from the beginning of your kitchener sts together with the tail from the edging on that side too. Since this join is double sided, you can be really cavalier with ends and knots, they will all be on the inside. 
4. Flip the squares over and repeat steps 1-3 on the back side. There is now an open “tube” of yarn connecting the squares.
5. Repeat with all other squares in that strip. Don’t worry about the sts on the outside edges of your strips, you’ll pic those up when you do the edging. 

Step 3: Horizontal Joins

1. Working across the right side of a strip of joined squares from step 2, pick up and knit 2 sts from the lower edge the outermost join. Pick up and knit 1 st for each st along the bottom of the top strip of squares. On the little pot holder squares, that’s 12 sts. On a Geek-A-Long square, that’s 45 sts.
2. When you reach the join, pick up and knit 6 sts from it. There are more than 6 sts, there, but to maintain spacing, only pick up and work 6 evenly across the top side of the join. 
3. When you reach the end of the work and have picked up all the sts across, turn the strip and purl back across. 
4. Knit one row, then purl one row. Break yarn. Slip sts to waste needle holder.
5. Repeat steps 1-5 on the other side. 
6. Once you have knit your horizontal joins, graft them using the Kitchener st as in step 2, until the full blanket is joined. 

Step 4: Edging

1. Beginning at the lower right hand corner, and using circular needles long enough to hold a lot of sts, Pick up and knit all edge sts , picking up 2 sts on the edges of the joins at each corner, and 6 sts evenly spaced across the joins you made in step 3. 
2. Knit 1 row around, increasing 2 sts at each corner as follows: When you reach each of the 4 corners of the blanket, work K1, yarn over, K1 into that corner st. 
3. Knit 1 row. Break yarn leaving a very long tail. 
4. Repeat on the other side of the blanket. 
5. Thread a very long piece of yarn through a tapestry needle, and graft the top outer edge to the sts on the bottom outer edge. Proceed around, grafting the top to the bottom until you reach the end. Secure your yarn and tuck in all ends using a crochet hook or your tapestry needle. 

Now you are all set, and ready to edge your blanket! Come back next week for fun surprises and 2019 Geek-A-Long Spoilers. 

~Megan-Anne

I am so pumped for 2019. Just thinking about it makes me hungry for a cookie cat.

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